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Uhoh, you're going to piss off the Methuselah Foundation and the transhumanist...

A good deal of ancient civilization came about because a ruler wanted to achieve immortality on Earth, and the only way to do that is to become famous enough that your name and your deeds would never be forgotten. Example: Gilgamesh (NOT the anime, the Mesopotamian epic)

I realize that's an extreme over-simplification. It's also late at night and my brain isn't fully here. This is also off-topic.

Yes, I'm religious. No, I will not force my beliefs down your throat.

__________________

I question, and get an answer. I question the answer, and get anger. I question the anger, but nothing more is left.

If everything is caused by something, then there's nothing else to cause that something.

You may be right, but being convinced it is your god that's responsible for that you claim by faith

I don't hold much 'faith' in the Big Bang theory
but there is even less proof of the existence of a higher being/entity
Now let's for argument's sake believe that there is the possibility (in theory ANYTHING is possible )

Then there is still not enough to claim that that higher being is YOUR preferred diety

If you want to believe in an uncertainty, you may as well believe in death

Scientists at least exclaim in honesty to the question "what was there before the Big bang then?"
-"We don't know"

Their very goals are different. Science is built upon the ideas of the scientific method, which is used to make observations about our world that can then be perceived as "truths" until otherwise disproven with the same scientific method.

Religion on the other-hand is usually primarily concerned with existentialism... Simple questions about why are we here? How should we live our lives? Who created us?

The answers to those questions are perhaps the goal of some scientists, but that is not the stated goal of "science" because science is a method of observing perceived truths. That is all.

Lastly, why do so many people put faith in this so called "scientific method?" This is because the scientific method allows anyone with the means to retest the same experiment under certain conditions and observe the same results. It's a "if you don't believe it, try it yourself and show me that I am wrong."

Given what you said I think you are more of an Agnostic Theism than Agnostic Atheist. As the the first is the "view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, but still believe in such an existence"; while the seconds one "are atheistic because they do not have belief in the existence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know that a deity does not exist."

Didn't see this message was meant to me without you telling me hehe
Anyhow, you might be right, I don't get into the religion thing too much, IMO I would be happy if Haruhi were god, and if I'll believe that Haruhi is god so it's fine :P

Well its supposed to be reward, but meh... I'm never imagine God as sexy as Adriana Lima anyway
BTW its nice analogy eh....
who cares about others opinion if you believe your lovers ?
Religion is like that, u maybe get hurt if you believin' but if the choice is rite, you live happily.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agito Akiyama

I would be happy if Haruhi were god, and if I'll believe that Haruhi is god so it's fine :P

Anyhow, you might be right, I don't get into the religion thing too much, IMO I would be happy if Haruhi were god, and if I'll believe that Haruhi is god so it's fine :P

I'm not into this subject at all, just generally.

I agree with you on that point , and I only know some on this cause I've discussed religion good bit with my younger brother, and looked up various things on it as to not be uninformed when talking about it with him.

Wow not expect you two is muslim too, sallam from south-east asia.
I hear on UK (and on others EU Country), islam keep growing huh... can you tell a little about live as muslim on there ?
Well it must be not really different, but I'm curious on little things, like how atmosphere when Friday sholat' etc

Well, since I don't know much about the perceptions and culture of muslims in other countires, it's hard for me to make comparison.

All I can say is that reconciling traditional Islamic culture with the secular (almost atheistic) social norms and culture of Britain can be quite difficult and trying at times.

You may be right, but being convinced it is your god that's responsible for that you claim by faith

I don't hold much 'faith' in the Big Bang theory
but there is even less proof of the existence of a higher being/entity
Now let's for argument's sake believe that there is the possibility (in theory ANYTHING is possible )

Then there is still not enough to claim that that higher being is YOUR preferred diety

If you want to believe in an uncertainty, you may as well believe in death

All of that is a matter of faith.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So... The Christianity that persecuted heliocentrists, then, who did believe that?

That's the Christianity that's been made up by these people, not the real Christianity. Because the Bible teaches Christians to love, not persecute.

My point of view on afterlife, we die, we get to a world of Anime and harem.

I can find myself in this.

I don't believe in God and I'm a fervent opponent of most religions out there (especially most of the big ones), but I don't think death is truly the end of the line for my 'consciousness' (or 'soul', if you want to call it that).

I say God created the universe. You say the universe came to be when a big explosion scattered matter and energy into space which formed stars, planets, etc. (Substitute as necessary with whatever the current scientific theory is right now.)

Do you see how the second statement is irrelevant to the first statement? The second statement neither confirms nor denies nor has anything to do with the first statement. Just like describing how a cake was made has nothing to do with the statement that someone prepared the cake.

I understand your premise; the truth is I once believed the same thing you're stating. Nonetheless, I've recently been exposed to the idea by some scientists (Daniel Denett for example) that if god exists, he is still within the observations of science. Science isn't anything, really, other than what we can conclude/understand based on phenomena we are capable of detecting. This is why I say perhaps we can take a scientific viewpoint on the 'god question.' Of course, the only answer we have right now is "I don't know."

All of that is a matter of faith. That's the Christianity that's been made up by these people, not the real Christianity. Because the Bible teaches Christians to love, not persecute.

You're diluting the word "faith" to cover so much that you're venturing into solipsism. You have "faith" that anything you see, hear, feel, think, or experiment on actually has tangibility using that smeared definition.

"Faith", in order to have any meaning at all, specifically means the belief in something without any tangible evidence. It *feels* true to you. That's not the meaning of science. In science, as an example, the Theory of Relativity holds sway, but the INSTANT a piece of verified evidence refutes it - its going to be toast, thrown out if it can't be modified to incorporate the new information (or like Newtonian physics, held to be still useful for certain domains, just incomplete). Faith does not use that protocol.